Confessions of a Gadget Junkie

Ah, April Fool’s Day. Such a special day at Get Rich Slowly. Every year, I share a story of my own foolishness with money. And there are so many stories to choose from! Stories like The $1500 Frisbee and How to Turn $500 Into $7 the Hard Way. This year’s story is about my love for computers.

When I graduated from college and went to work for the family box company, I had no concept of setting financial goals or saving for the future. I spent each paycheck as it came in — and more. I liked the idea, though, of investing my money. In my naive little mind, I imagined that the stock market made people rich.

So, when my cousin Nick — who is five years older than I am — took the time to explain what he was doing with his money, I did my best to listen. (I didn’t listen well, though, and didn’t really understand what he was saying.)

Nick told me about mutual funds, pools of stocks and bonds that made it easy for small investors to own a lot of companies at once. He told me that he was investing his money with a company called Invesco, buying funds of medical stocks and technology stocks. “I’ll do that, too,” I said.

Investing made stupid
This was back in 1992. I had the beginnings of a credit-card problem (about $12,000 in debt), no savings, and was making $30,000 a year. I was also spending more than I earned. To find the initial contribution to my mutual funds I had to — no joke — take a cash advance on my credit cards. It never even occurred to the 23-year-old J.D. that he was paying roughly 20% to chase uncertain returns in the stock market. This just seemed like the thing to do.

I sent in my $1,000 initial deposit, and then signed up for $50 automatic monthly contributions.

Sometime soon after, my Apple Macintosh SE died. I can’t remember why, but I know that I was convinced I needed a computer, so I did the only thing I could. Because my credit cards were maxed out, I cashed out my mutual funds to get the cash I needed to buy a Macintosh Classic II. (Kris contributed half of the funds, which she simply pulled from her ample savings.)

Looking back, I weep at how stupid I was. But there was plenty more to come.

How not to spend a windfall
My father died on 21 July 1995, ten days shy of his fiftieth birthday. When he died, he left each of his sons $5,000 in life insurance and 10% of the box factory.

By this time, my credit-card debt had grown to just over $20,000. If I’d been smart, I would have taken the life-insurance proceeds and used them to immediately pay off $5,000 in debt. But I wasn’t smart. I’m sure you can guess what I did.

I used $1,000 to pay off debt (and patted myself on the back for it), but took the rest to purchase a Macintosh Performa 640CD DOS-compatible personal computer. The machine was awesome. And expensive. And because it ran both Windows and Mac OS, that meant I spent twice as much money on computer programs.

My father had gone to a lot of trouble to set aside a bit of life insurance for us (he didn’t obtain the policy until after he discovered he had cancer). He wanted to give each of us a little boost so that we wouldn’t make the same mistakes he had. It was a nice idea, but it didn’t work.

Cash is king
I could go on and on, of course. For instance, after I’d cut up my credit cards in order to avoid new debt, I still found a way to buy a new computer on credit. I applied for a consumer loan directly from Apple, which gladly gave me the rope to hang myself. In 2003, I borrowed $3,000 to buy a brand new Power Macintosh G5 tower.

Now, of course, the Apple iPad is just days away from launch. And yes, I’ve ordered one to be delivered to my door on Saturday morning. Is this just as stupid as all of my other tech purchases? Perhaps. But there’s one key difference. This time, instead of cashing out my mutual funds or using a windfall to fund my purchase, I’m using money I’ve put in my savings account for this very purpose.

It may be that I’m paying a penalty for being an early adopter, but one thing’s for certain: Because I no longer finance these sorts of purchases on credit, there’s no compounding on my stupidity. What I pay is what I pay. Now if only I could learn to be satisfied with last year’s model…

Okay, it’s your turn. I know I’m not the only April fool out there. Tell us about the stupid things you’ve done with money. What’d it cost you. What’d you learn? How you turn things around?

I do not really have a turnaround story but do have a friend who influenced me in investing.

In grad school I had a really good friend who had a subscription to the wall street journal. I thought that was odd for someone in their early 20s. He helped educate me on the concept of mutual funds, retirement accounts, savings, etc. When I got my first job at 24, I immediately opened a 401K and mutual fund account.

I have really never been gadget crazy, so I cannot comment on that one.

In the 80s and 90s I bought hundreds of music CDs while I was carrying a bunch of credit card debt. I eventually saw the error of my ways. For 5+ years now I have been out of debt, and have switched to buying the other kind of CDs (the ones from a bank). I have been watching the music CDs collect dust for the past 3 years since I put the music on my hard drives, and sometimes regretting having spent almost $10k on them, plus lots of credit card interest. Last week I decided to send 600 of them to http://ipodmeister.com , and will be getting an iPad in return shortly. Not a very good return on investment, but better than I expected to see.

Nice story JD–for me, I convinced my wife to join me in a pyramid type business focused on military auctions—buying military old supply and then re-selling it. We had to drop $500 to get in (that should always be a clue–”hey, I have a great job for you; you just have to pay me to get in”–duh, I can see who’s going to really rake in here). This came when I was in seminary and we were living so cash-strapped (though out of personal debt—kind of a focus for me) that we had about $25 a week for groceries. Plus, I knew then that I hated doing sales, so even if we did buy something it would have only sat in my backyard gathering rust.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s watching my mother pay for all my school clothes with her Visa (it was Bankamericard then). What I didn’t see was her writing a check each month to pay off the card. She never carried a balance, but I didn’t know that until years later.

So, I came out of the gate charging everything but groceries and rent and the car note when I graduated from college. Because I only made the minimum monthly payment, my balances crept ever higher, of course.

Some 20 years later, I was able to pay off around $15,000 with my husband’s help. It was a painful and embarrassing lesson to learn, and my early recklessness with credit is the one aspect of my personal history I would do over.

Now, I’m debt free. The irony is, it’s far easier now to choose NOT to buy things than it was when I was charging everything.

My first car in high school was a Jeep Wrangler. My parent’s took out the loan in their names, and I made the payments. I struggled with the $99 payment each month, but I made it, and I paid the car off myself without missing a payment and had the title transferred to my name in the end. The sad part was, I put about $5000 into a stereo system, oversized tires, a winch, a chrome grill, new seats, and all sorts of other shennanigans. All told, I spent $8000 total on the Jeep, and sold it three years later for $1000. Talk about feeling sheepish! Looking back though, I couldn’t have asked for a better first car.

My broker (who accepted our money $10 at a time)retired . Her son took over her accounts. We had lots of dollar over dollar money in Worldcom. I went in to take it out. Gut feeling He had a great sailing boat picture on the wall, ” I just bought it.” “Don’t take your money out- the company is fine.” Easily embarrassed and a teen outside on the side walk I left without taking it out
The NEXT DAY I lost a large chunk of our life savings when it went under. Still writing it off – 14 years later.

Hard lesson- trust my gut. At least I trusted in at 14,000…and know how to save on one income!
Also, no one cares about your money more than you- so take good care of it.

I cashed in a mutual fund to buy a Mac. I wish I’d kept the stock in an IRA — it is a good company. But I can only move forward with the knowledge I gain from sites like yours. AND I bought my iPhone with cash this time. I learned something! Thanks.

I love computer technology but I have not purchased a computer in many years. People give away the “old computers” that are running Microsoft operating systems and are full of virus and spy-ware. I wipe the disk drive and install Ubuntu and other free, open source software. The free computer suddenly runs as fast at an i4 and has cost me nothing. Now people are starting to give away multi-core computers! Recycle and reuse. Keep your money in your investments.

When my wife and I decided to start a college fund, we made an appointment to sit down with a financial advisor. Thinking ahead, I took out a cashier’s check for the amount we were planning to invest. When it came time to give the advisor our initial investment, he said a personal check would work just as well — so I wrote a personal check instead, wrote VOID across the $5000 cashier’s check, and put it through the shredder. Since it was about full, I dumped the shredder’s contents into the kitchen trash and took it out to the dumpster.

The next day, I was looking at my balance online and trying to figure out why I had already been debited for the $5000 cashier’s check when it hadn’t been cashed yet. After googling “cashier’s check” and slamming my head on my desk a few times, I went out to dig around in the (now much-fuller) dumpster to no avail.

Fortunately for idiots like me, my bank agreed to refund the money after 30 days as long as I would sign a document saying the check had been destroyed, which I was sure of. (I did it myself!) Needless to say, my wife no longer allows me to handle cashier’s checks on the very rare occasions when we use them.

That’s just funny but I feel the same, 5 months ago I had a 19,000$ debt, and I was merely doing 24,000$ a year. Now imagine, I couldn’t even rely on myself to buy food I was always late in my payments and somehow I always managed to find excuses to spend more money. I was full in debt when I got the iPhone but felt like it was worth the money. 5 months layer I got rid of my car, I asked someone to take over my iPhone, payed entirely one of my 2 credit cards and now I’m just over 2000$ in debt. It’s been a really hard time and I had to rely on my parent’s for food and shelter but I’m going back with my girlfriend in 3 months, free of debt.

I got a full college scholarship that was contingent on maintaining my GPA above 3.5. I kept the scholarship for 2 years, and the first foolish thing I did was allow my GPA to drop below 3.5. What really makes me kick myself, though, is that there was an appeal process for extending the scholarship for one year in the event of extenuating circumstances (for example, a death in the family or serious illness). I didn’t have much of an excuse, so I didn’t even try to appeal. I later found out that almost every appeal was approved, even if the excuse was simply being under a lot of stress. I probably could have kept my scholarship for another year, which would have been almost $10,000.

In the early 90s spent $240 on a pair of nice leather, fur lined, cowboy boots. They did not fit as well as they should have so I only wore them a few times. A few years later I came to my senses and realize that I am too boring and conservative to pull off the cowboy boots look and donated them to charity.

I took out a $5,000 personal loan to invest in the stock market towards the end of 2008. We all know what happened to the stock market in late 2008…
It felt so good when that loan was finally paid off…

I’ll second post #2 and #6 about the CD’s and DVD’s. From the time I got my first job in high school, I would get my paycheck and then go to Best Buy to buy CD’s 2 or 3 at a time. I’d also go to movies almost every weekend. When I got into college, I got back in to comics and baseball cards. After college, I moved to Books, magazines, and DVD’s.

One day, you look at all that stuff, shelves full of CD’s, DVD’s (many unopenned), and books (many unread) and boxes of comics and magazines along with a stack of movie ticket receipts and you think, “I wish I had all that money back.”

I suppose I created a lot of fun experiences for myself at the time, and I’ve used my pop-culture and movie knowledge to start a movie-themed webcomic, but still, I can now think of a bunch of better ways I could have spent that money.

I am over $47000 in debt getting a BA and MA in Theology and an MLIS. Funny thing is: I’m not even that religious anymore (although I do enjoy the study of religion) and a job in a library, even one specializing in theological resources, barely pays a decent salary without adding the cost of the loan on top. Oh well.

I have a good one I purchased a brand new car in 2002 (a 2003 model) with the intent of turning it into a show car. Which I did I took a 21K car and over the next 18 months added between 25-30K of Rims, stereo, suspension, engine work and body mods you name it I had it on this car. I won multiple trophies at some big national car shows, but I wanted more. I sent it to a shop halfway across the country to “develop” some prototype parts for it. Well 6 months later when i took the car back from them on a flat bed by force. I had to deliver it to another shop to get it somewhat running again before I could drive it back home. I took it home and pretty much parked it for the better part of 5 1/2 years.

I recently sold the car for $1500 bucks just to get it out of my garage. I was so mad at that car for the whole time it sat there laughing at me. For the past 5 years I haven’t even been able to enjoy my favorite hobby which is cars. I had taken a loan on the car 21K over 5 years + interest, plus lets say 25K in parts (lucky that was mostly paid for in cash) Also lets not forget while I was paying on a car sitting in the garage un-drivable I went out and purchased another new car.I just think what I could have done with that cash or least the cars I could have purchased for 70K+ I want to cry.

Well I guess that is how you learn. I just wish I would have learned it with only a 1/10th the investment in cash.

I havent done anything this stupid. but I will tell you what I think of the iPhone, iPad and such. I dont really want to make whats-his-face-Steve Jobs, I guess, any richer. He is rich enough without my adding my nickel to his pile. That idea really stops me in my tracks. My celphone, a blackberry, is paid for by my employer-I dont need it much and rarely use it-a waste of time and money. Perfectly happy with a landline. The office pays for my home computer too. I will not buy another, and may go computerless when I retire-its just a time suck. I would rather get my ironing done. I would rather buy artwork: mine has appreciated 10-20 fold since I bought it-gadgets depreciate.

Mine is definitely pianos. I know how to fix them up and I like doing that but I now have 5 pianos in various forms (organ, electric piano, acoustic)….and I don’t even know how to play that well! It’s not a big deal because I have friends that can play well that I play along with, but I still feel sheepish when I think about it or tell anyone about my “gadget” obsession.

I funded my entire undergraduate degree myself with private and federal student loans. Unfortunately, I also racked up credit card bills on frivolous stuff (none of which I still own today), and then took out larger student loans to pay off the credit cards. To make matters worse, over the years I would use any excuse to defer payment of the loans, such as when I took a couple college courses just for fun in my spare time. Eventually I had to defer again for a full year when I went back to school full time for a new degree. I took out my first Wells Fargo private student loan in 1994, at 9% interest, and 2 years ago I had a balance higher than the original disbursement amount, over 30k! The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach to think about. I’m morbidly curious as to how much money I have paid in interest on that loan over the last 16 years, but so far I haven’t had the nerve to calculate it out. Now it’s more than half paid off, and we should be rid of it in a year or so. Sadly, that is only the worst of many terrible financial decisions we have made over the years, and 2 years ago when we finally started to seriously pay the loans off, we had 120K in consumer/student loan debt. Unbelievable. We’re down to 80k now, and while theoretically we should be able to pay it all off within about 3 years, it seems like a pipe dream that will never actually happen. I wish I could go back to being 20 years old again and do pretty much everything differently.

Back in 2000 I was purchasing my home. I did have 20% down from the sale of my condo, but I had no emergency fund and was living on the edge.

A friend of mine living in San Francisco working for a tech company. For the years she worked there she told me what a great company it was. I didn’t have much money, but scraped together $750–the last of my savings to buy stock. The bubble burst and the stocks were worth nothing within a few months.

When I got engaged to the man of my dreams I had already dreamed what my perfect wedding would be. As we started the planning process my parents offered to give us $25 000 as a wedding present, either to pay for the wedding or to use as a down payment on a house. I convinced my fiance that we would only have one wedding, but we had many years to save for a house. He agreed and we stayed in our little apartment while I planned a grandios wedding for 400 people.

It was a beautiful wedding! 8 bridesmaids, 8 ushers, limo bus, prime rib dinner and a $3000 dream dress. I really tried to stick to the $25 000 budget, but as anyone who has planned a wedding knows, things get out of hand and at the end of it all we spent approximately $55 000 in total – on one day!

I wish the story ended there. Almost 3 months after the wedding my husband came home and told me that he was moving out of the province. He realized that he was in love with one of his co-workers, and his company was transfering her to their office 3000 kms away due to their relationship. He decided to quit his job and follow her there.

That was in June of 2005 and I am proud to say I am almost finished paying off the additional debt we incurred for the wedding, in addition to the $25 000 my parents gave us (still owe them $6000). I insisted on paying them back and I have been living frugally in a tiny apartment and working a part time and a full time job since.

Thank you for making me realize that I am not the only one who makes stupid mistakes, and for helping me regain control of my finances.

I used to have the bug of getting the latest computers. For me, it wasn’t macintosh, it was a build your own PC. I would upgrade stuff way too much. We all know how much you regret those purcahses eventually.

What cured me, aside from getting older and wiser, was to start using Linux. For one thing, there’s constantly things to learn, so I don’t feel like I’m bored with technology. For another thing, there’s a new version every six months, which is about how fast I used to upgrade my computer wanting the fastest, greatest hardware. Lastly, Linux doesn’t always work with hardware that’s less than a month old, so you really have a hard time paying that first-one-on-the-block premium.

I’m about to start some open source coding projects of my own, because I appreciate the community so much. This is going to give me something to do (cheap hobby, since I already own the computers) and give me something else to throw onto my resume. I have a good job now, but if I wanted a better one, then public code experience is money in the bank.

Bought my condo with no money down (100% financing). Looking back, it was a dumb move. I’m miserable in that condo and having a horrible condo association/management company that bleeds money, cannot tell us where our money is going, then try to get us each to pay 4k up front or 46 bucks a month for 10 years for brand new siding (in this economy) doesn’t help. We had to petition and go door to door to get homeowners signatures so we can veto the board’s unilateral decision…when in the condo bylaws, it states that for something like this (a project that will cost 900k plus or minus) needs to have a vote taken of all homeowners. Finally, the ‘allowed’ the vote…and we voted it down.

I have too many financial horror stories to think about but I would just like to say that I wish I’d never plundered the 401K ….or bought the 1966 Thunderbird home from Solvang on a flatbed for ‘restoration’ ….or bought more house than I needed…and so on.

I hit bottom, resolved to change my ways, and the past 3 years have been much better.

This past year, I put my annual tax withholding, $20 K, into a stock for a company with a unique energy storage product that was going to launch in December 2009 and save the world. As April 15 approaches, I am still waiting and there is no new news. Now I am working 60 hour weeks to make up the taxes by April 15th. Even though the stock is worth half of what I bought it for, I am still holding out hope. Go Zenn Motor Company!

Yes, thanks for the stories. Dee, #26, that’s a heartbreaker of a story and you are brave to share it.
My idiot story is using my credit card to eat out all the time. When I grew up it was a special treat to go out. For several years I “treated myself” almost daily using my credit card, with no regard to the debt I was accumulating or the type of food I was eating. Needless to say it was embarassing to spend money later–and on my credit card- to pay for personal training and Weight Watchers to take off the weight I put on. All total, at least $8k over 3 years.

I could have made a down payment on a house with all of the money I have spent on compact discs over the past ten years. I love listening to music — I do play them — and I have enjoyed the collecting aspect, but I can tell it is time to leave the buying behind and focus on enjoying what I own. The dumbest thing I have spent money on is cigarettes. That’s another thing I will soon be leaving behind.

Oh I have one that still stings- we bought a house, a TINY house worth $68K in a bad neighborhood, and somehow ended up with $960 in monthly payments. !!?!?!?!! My real estate agent told me that the ‘big secret’ that nobody was telling me was that we’d get all teh interest back in taxes, so the trick was to take the tax return and divide it by 12 to help with the monthly payments. Everybody does that-didn’t you know? She also advised us to refinance THE MONTH AFTER WE MOVED IN. Well, re-fi requires more $ that we didn’t have and our tax ‘refund’ turned out to be about $100. You can guess where that road led..

My April fool was borrowing money on my 401k to buy a “cant miss” triplex,

The tenants never paid rent and I had to do 3 evictions; that took weeks and weeks. One decided to take everything down to even the door knobs. Then yes, I got down sized at work where for 8 years I thought I was too valuable to ever be replaced. Not replaced but consolidated. Ouch.

I was so leveraged trying to get rich quick in real estate that I couldnt pay back my 401k.

Never again, no debt, no credit cards, no trying to leverage my way to riches.

Great topic for April Fool’s Day. Thanks for initiating it; it helps one see the wisdom of good financial skills as well as making you feel a little less like an idiot. Others have done similar things too.

I think the biggest foolish thing I did was to be the “spender” in a “saver” marriage. My husband always told me that if we could carry $3-5000 in credit card debt, we could equally as easy save $3-5000 instead.

I grew up in a large family and while I didn’t feel especially deprived, I couldn’t wait to get a paycheck and be able to acquire things. Marrying a saver didn’t rub off on me until we came close to retirement and I started worrying about what we would live on.

Fortunately, a friend turned me onto your website and it was the best thing that ever happened to us. I read all the books, especially Dave Ramsey and quickly with “gazelle intense” effort, our home was paid for (I don’t even want to think about how much we ACTUALLY did pay for it); and our cars were paid for and we were debt free.

We have shared the books with our children and only hope they will adopt the Baby Steps and be financially secure throughout their lives.

I married a man who was a financial disaster (and still is)with HUGE earning potential. Our entire marriage he spent every penny we earned and all available credit to get gadgets and keep up with his friends (who earned a QUARTER of what he, as an engineer with no student loans, did and had NO debt) — computers, video games, consoles, DVDs, cameras, clothes, cars… it seemed that every time I got us consolidated and had a plan in place to get out of debt, he applied for another credit card or store card!!

I believed I could change him. When I left him we had a $125K home in a VERY nice neighborhood that he decided (against my wishes)to refinance less than a year after we bought it for $175K, $6K on VISA (which the bank had promised would be capped at $1000!!), and $20K in a line of credit… and that was just the debt I KNEW about. He took the ENTIRE $40K he recieved in the refinance (i had left him by this time) and bought himself a new car (using cash and visa), paid off the line of credit, and bought himself a whole new wardrobe, had laser eye surgery, paid taxes on the house, gave money to friends and girlfriends… basically frittered everythign away. Meanwhile I and his children didn’t get one PENNY of support (while he made $90K/year and I made $20K/year)…
But, leaving him was the BEST THING I could do. Despite him hanging onto the house until the housing bubble in our area burst and the courts allowing him to ratchet up debts under my name AFTER I left him… once the house was sold and MOST of the debts paid off with the proceeds I ended up in a much better position.
Instead of shouldering the $40K in debts that were my “share” as a married person, I was able to walk away with only $5K in student loans (which I have paid off now, in less than a year), and $7K in legal debts. I now have a mortage under my own name, and a plan to get the rest of the way out of the non-mortgage debt AND STAY THERE…
I could never have changed him… he’s still spending more than he earns and cashing in retirement savings (RRSPs here in Canada) to make ends meet!

I guess I should feel bad about spending a metric ton o’ money on CDs, DVDs, and books, but I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of value out of them – and they’ve kept me content to not go out much for concerts, the theatre, first-run movies etc. I didn’t even have cable till five years ago.

The thing that’s a *headdesk* for me is the digital piano in my dining room. It’s an excellent instrument, but at the time I bought it I hadn’t played regularly for over ten years. And I’ve had it over six years and have barely played it. It was bought used from a university music department and cost just under $6K, which I financed but paid off in full at the end of the first year.

I feel relatively certain I will want to play the piano again in the future, but it’s a solitary pursuit, and I already have enough of those to fill my time. I want to spend my years with DH doing things with him, not by myself.

So I have this dilemma. The piano is big, and it’s one of the things that if we ever need/want to downsize our living space, we’ll have to decide whether to keep it or not.

Plus, when I’m old and alone, will I want a nearly full-size piano that I can’t move by myself, or will I want a small keyboard that’s more manageable? Most likely the latter.

I’m leaning toward offering to give it to our friends who have a bright, creative little girl … and a big house.

My wife and I recently went onto the Dave Ramsey program just under a year ago, and it has really opened our eyes to the kind of “smart” decisions we made. I love to ride bikes, and one of my pride and joys is my Orbea Onix TDF that I have been riding for 2 1/2 years. I did all kinds of work, and sold off a lot of extra stuff I had lying around the house in order to pay for it. I walked out of the store with a brand new $2000 dollar bike paid for in cash. I love it and have never regretted making that decision.
Of course, once you get into the community, you start nickel and diming yourself. Once I was in the bike store looking to “upgrade” the pedals on my bike. The ones I had were slightly worn and needed to be replaced, but not necessarily upgraded. I found the pedals that I wanted, and they were only $120, that I didn’t have. Of course, with the pedal purchase, I would need a new $300 shoes right? Isn’t that how this works? $450 dollars later at 11.9% interest, I was looking more and more like a real cyclist! I used to laugh at the people that would buy their $6,000 bikes on a credit card and put them on the back of their 1999 Toyota Corolla and drive off. I was like “Well at least the car is paid for!” After taking Dave’s Financial Peace University I feel like such a hypocrite.
The good news is, since the class, my wife and I have eliminated all our credit cards, developed a crucial skill called “Power Over Purchase”, reorganized our finances into this new thing they call a budget (maybe it’s a hard G pronounced Bud-Get?), finished paying off a personal loan we had taken out with my Grandfather, zeroed in on Credit Card number 1, and reduced our total debt by $7590.

Probably the biggest one for me was skipping out on the $5k/year in-state tuition of the state school and selecting instead the $25k/year private school. I did receive scholarships and grants that dropped that tuition rate — but I also took on a hefty amount of loans.

In the end, for my chosen major, the state school would have been a better choice.

In 3rd year University I bought a $3000 engagement ring for a girl that cheated on me in 4th year a month before we were to be married. I still have the ring (~10 years later), and I’ve been told by pawn brokers etc. that it’s worth about $60 to $300. And yes, I’d paid for it with student loans which I am still paying off.

@chacha1 (#38)
You just inspired a post! I’ve had writers block all frickin’ week, and now in the matter of fifteen minutes, I’ve outlined three posts, the longest of which is based on your comment. Thanks.

Pretty much everything I did with money between 18 and 28 was stupid. The smartest thing I did was doing well in school and getting lots of scholarships. Even with $40k of free money for school, I still ended up with $24k of student loans. How? I would overspend every semester and pay off my credit cards with student loans at the beginning of the next semester. I kept my overspending, no-clue-with-money ways after graduating from college and landing a decent paying job. At 27, I cut up my credit cards. At 28, I started aggressively paying off my debt. Four years later I’m almost done with all the debt ($77k) of my younger years. $6k left to go and I’ll be debt-free!!!

How about just years of not paying attention, not really knowing where my money was going and if i was saving or not. Just living in a financial fog. I always contributed to my 401K and never touched my investment account, but I don’t think I really saved anything for about 10 years. Oy vey!

My biggest mistake was marrying a “spender” and not keeping a close watch on her spending. $30k in credit card debt at one point. I put my foot down and began tightly managing the finances (she eventually left) and I am now debt free (except for a mortgage). I have a nice emergency fund and am aggressively saving for retirment and other things.

Regarding gadgets, specifically cell phones. I find that these little toys are a huge drain on a budget. I have one. And, I actually only use it as a phone.

I bet most people with Smart phones spend about $50/month simply to be able to access the internet from their phone.

That is a huge cost when you can carry a laptop to a wi-fi spot or better yet, do without the internet when you are not at your desk at work or near your desktop pc at home.

I like gadgets like most people, but to me the smart phone does not offer any bang for my buck.

Pam (#37), were you on Til Debt Do Us Part, with Gali Vaz-Oxlade? I saw that episode; and the whole time could not believe anyone (much less a husband) was that cruel and demeaning, as was that husband.

I decided to go back to school and get my degree when I was 24 and thought it would be wise to move out so I could better concentrate. I have 3 younger brothers and we lived in a smaller house at the time. On top of regular government loans for tuition I was very easily able to get a 20K private loan to pay off my car so I didn’t have a car payment and another 7K loan for living expenses. I’m 29 now and done with school but I have learned alot since then and am in the process of quickly paying it all back. Thats probably the dumbest financial thing I could have done.

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